In reality, Orff was nearly 42 and had a significant compositional output before Carmina Burana was completed and first performed in Frankfurt in 1937. Born in Munich in 1895, Orff began to study the piano, the organ, and the cello at the age of five and, not long after, discovered the alluring sound worlds of Debussy and early Schoenberg, the influence of which can be clearly heard in his early works.

Carmina Burana represents a break from his earlier style and works, which he disavowed and largely withdrew in his post-Carmina career. Driving rhythms, simple quasi-modal harmonies, strophic forms, and a bacchanalian spirit define Orff's magnum opus, which sets to music bawdy, irreverent medieval poetry rediscovered in Germany in the early 19th century. With its alternating raucous boisterousness and elegant simplicity paired with the decidedly human themes of love, lust, and the inexorable turn of fortune's wheel, it is no wonder that Orff's Carmina Burana has secured for itself a place in the canon of the twentieth century's most important and most beloved works.